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Hall of Fame for Great Americans

January 6, 2006 at 8:29 AM | 0 Comments

One of the most coolest architectural and sculptural works in New York is also one of the most obscure. The Hall of Fame for Great Americans, designed in 1901 for what was then the uptown campus of New York University, was created by the architect Stanford White. This 630-foot open-air walkway of columns contains 98 bronze busts of American inventors, politicians, authors, and activists: Eli Whitney, Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, they're all here. It's like Vanity Fair magazine, Victoriain edition. Many of sculptors are names in themselves: Daniel Chester French (Lincoln Memorial); James Earl Fraser (figures in front of the Supreme Court), and Frederick MacMonnies (reliefs on Washington Square's Arch). Now on the campus of Bronx Community Campus, the Hall of Fame remains open to the public: just have a talk to the security guard to see who passed for the cream of the crop a century ago.
Related links:
·   Hall of Fame [Bronx Community College]